2023 Budget: N871bn grossly inadequate for police, says Minister
By Tom Okpe
Minister of Police Affairs, Muhammad Dingyadi, has informed the House Committee on Police Affairs that the proposed N871 billion allotted the Ministry in the 2023 budget was grossly inadequate to execute its mandate.
Dingyadi made this assertion at the joint budget defence before the joint House of Representatives and Senate Committee on Police on Tuesday, saying despite the outcry for the 2022 budget, there was no significant improvement in the 2023 budgetary provisions.
According to him, out of the total budget of N871 billion earmarked for the Ministry and its Agencies, only N3 billion was given to the Ministry, while Nigerian Police Force, and the Nigerian Police Trust Fund gets N805 billion and N57 billion respectively.
The Minister also, decried the sum of N5 billion allocated to Police Academy Wudil Kano, said for the Ministry to carry out its mandate of ensuring adequate security of lives and property in Nigeria, its budget should be increased, DailytimesNGR gathered.
While speaking on the 2022 budget performance, Dingyadi said: “You’re aware of the Miniatry’s mandate.
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“In order to achieve our mandate, resources were provided for us in the 2022 budget for personnel overhead and capital expenditure.
“For purposes of implementation, actual releases in the main Ministry was N1.7 billion.
Out of this, the sum of N291 million has been released for overhead and N1.4 billion for capital, respectively.
“The released capital funds have largely been utilised to carry out critical programmes while procurement processes for capital projects are still ongoing.
“For the Ministry to carry out its mandate of ensuring adequate security of lives and property in Nigeria, the provisions proposed for this task in the year 2023.
“While we appreciate innovation the parliament has taken to fund the police in areas of fueling of vehicles and others, we look up at this point to intervene and improve the funding for the implementation of our mandate.”
Halliru Jika and Bello Kumo, Chairman and co-Chairman of the joint committee commended the Minister on his efforts to achieve the Ministry’s mandate.
The Committee Chairman, Jika however, called for a closed-door sessions, stating that; “security budget is not subjected to public scrutiny for security reasons.”
